Revisiting Reagan

Posted On 30 Dec 2015 / 0 Comment

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I have a complicated relationship with the legacy of Ronald Reagan. He was the first president I ever voted for. I turned 18 in the first spring of Jimmy Carter’s only term and, like many Americans, didn’t think the soft-spoken Georgian deserved four more years. It’s safe to say that I didn’t pay much attention to politics back then. I’m sure my voting decision was influenced by the long gas lines and Carter’s inability to get our hostages safely out of Iran. The “October surprise” allegations of Republicans obstructing the president’s efforts to free the hostages hadn’t gained much traction at that time. Reagan was a great campaigner, especially compared to Carter, and I was happy to cast my first presidential vote for the former California governor…

…It’s hard for me to think about the Reagan years without thinking of the most famous words to come out of the 40th president’s mouth: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Reagan presided over the collapse of the former Soviet Union and his policies directly led to the end of The Cold War. To a large extent, Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. “Star Wars”) priced the Soviet Union out of the arms race. We’ll never know if those space-based weapons systems would really have worked, but the Soviets couldn’t keep up and almost went broke trying to…

…But I also remember the Iran-Conta affair. Senior Reagan administration officials were caught secretly facilitating the sale of weapons to Iran, which was then under an arms embargo. They hoped to secure the release of several U.S. hostages and generate funds for the Contras in Nicaragua. The Contras were opposing the left-wing Sandinista government and further funding for the group had been prohibited by Congress through the Boland Amendment. Lt. Col. Oliver North took the blame for the scheme, but I never believed he was the brains behind it. Reagan may have been kept out of the loop, but I’m still sure that vice president George H.W. Bush (a former CIA director) was definitely in it…

…Despite reports that Reagan might have been suffering from Alzheimer’s during the latter part of his second term, he is almost deified in the minds of some Republicans. GOP presidential candidates cite him reverently. But an upcoming book by William Leuchtenburg, “The American Presidents: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton” paints a dramatically different picture of Reagan. “In his first year as president,” writes the presidential scholar, “he held only six news conferences—fewest ever in the modern era. Aides also prepared scores of cue cards, so that he would know how to greet visitors and respond to interviewers. His secretary of the treasury and later chief of staff said of the president: ‘Every moment of every public appearance was scheduled, every word scripted, every place where Reagan was expected to stand was chalked with toe marks.’ Those manipulations, he added, seemed customary to Reagan, for ‘he had been learning his lines, composing his facial expressions, hitting his toe marks for half a century.’ Each night, before turning in, he took comfort in a shooting schedule for the next day’s television- focused events that was laid out for him at his bedside, just as it had been in Hollywood.” There is no doubt that Reagan excelled as “spokesman-in-chief.” No one has handled that part of the presidency better…

…But apparently Reagan wasn’t much for the more detail-oriented aspects of being president. “When he was expected to read briefing papers,” Leuchtenburg, “he lazed on a couch watching old movies. On the day before a summit meeting with world leaders about the future of the economy, he was given a briefing book. The next morning, his chief of staff asked him why he had not even opened it. ‘Well, Jim,’ the president explained, ‘The Sound of Music was on last night.'” Reagan also had a hard time staying awake, something he often joked about. He told the White House press corps, “I am concerned about what is happening in government—and it’s caused me many a sleepless afternoon,” and he jested that posterity would place a marker on his chair in the Cabinet Room: “Reagan Slept Here.” Funny stuff. But the president nodded off during several meetings with European heads of state… and during a televised meeting with the Pope…

…I’m intrigued by the excerpts I’ve read from Leuchtenburg’s book and will seek out a copy. I’m curious to see what he has written about other presidents. As for my complicated relationship with the Reagan legacy, it will just have to stay complicated…